UPKEEP CHANGES MAKING TALL PLAY UNTENABLE

[me]

worst part about EU4 was playing tall was not possible, expansion was really the only way to "get better" and games eventually turned into map painting

I was really happy with the new proximity/control system because it punished rapid expansion, I think a couple of the changes with governors and the bailiffs make it less punishing but I'm fine with that but compounding that with some of the recent changes affecting tall play make playing wide look much more attractive

the building upkeep change is pretty wack imo, I understand the reasoning and that min maxing the game was too easy BUT

buildings are what make tall play viable and instead of nerfing height you need to add more separation between playing wide and playing tall so that the things that make tall play viable aren't easily applicable to playing wide so instead of getting the best of both worlds ur forced to choose

while playing in the middle is perfectly reasonable i think that should be made be more viable in smaller changes that can be dialed in at a later time and separating the potential of tall with the scalability of wide should be prioritized before worried about the in-between

idk how you would do that and after thinking for multiple minutes I havent come up with much but im not getting paid to do it so im not super motivated about it

i did come up with a few ideas though

1. no long lasting issues post sieges: rn you can besiege a city for 2 years and with a cabinet action can rectify all the bad things that happened in those two years in like 2 months, I think if buildings got destroyed during sieges or there was some type of more negative effect that lasted a longer time it would require more reinvestment into the city to turn it into a productive asset (also more historically accurate)

2. i like the economic threat stuff that you've added and you should expand on it

3. make rebellions more opportunistic and scary, the same way if they reach 75% they join any other rebellion, they should rebel if the country gets war declared on them and instead of automatically flipping ownership they should get occupied until a peace treaty

in that same vein guarantees of independence shouldn't be exclusive to subjects but also to culture groups that aren't tolerated or arent happy or whatever

this can also help with snowballing because rn if you capture an area you have to ♥♥♥♥ up pretty bad to lose it in a later war

also it helps with snowballing because right now if two big countries are beefing whoever wins the first war is basically guaranteed to snowball the rest of the conflict

for example, playing as the Byzantines you can instantly declare war on the ottomans and capture their biggest city and a good chunk of territory which denies the ottomans a lot of resources and pop to try to fight back and everything starts to compound upon itself

if in subsequent wars, if the newly byzantine territories instantly rebelled it would add a bit of a comeback mechanic that could help prevent snowballing

i'm just a big picture kinda of dude so idk and idc about the minutia but yall smart and can figure something out

[Darth Lupinus]

Your thoughts on having conquered territory join wars against their new "home" country are interesting; however, I'm not sure that your choice to use Byzantium and the Ottomans as your example is the right one.

At the start of the game, the majority of land controlled by the Ottomans is heavily populated by Greek culture having been conquered by the Ottomans. Based on your suggestions, that would mean that all of that Greek culture territory should join the Byzantines against the Ottomans. In essence, the Byzantines attacking the Ottomans is a reconquest war to reclaim territories that were taken from them by the Turks. The majority of the Greek Pops in Anatolia would most likely welcome the Byzantines and help them.

I believe your suggestion could work, but only with territories that have not yet been integrated. Having cultures or culture groups join rebellions or wars could lead to a snowballing effect in the opposite direction, as there are cases when a significant portion of a nation's territory and population belong to another culture.

For this to work, I believe that for pops of a culture to join other rebellions or wars, the culture in question should have a relationship with the overlord country that is less than neutral on both sides, meaning the overlord nation's primary culture views the culture in question negatively AND the culture in question views the overlord's culture negatively.

[tonypa]

I do not think culture or national identity was an actual thing until 1800s. In medieval times countries were not ruled by national parliaments, they had rulers. Some rulers were of same culture and spoke same language, others came from far away lands or sometimes never even stepped on their subject countries. And the rebellions were not all same, sometimes local nobles just attempted to carve out countries to rule for themselves, they did not have masses supporting their cause as most peasants did not even care who the king was.

Having non-tolerated or unhappy cultures in your country is already a penalty. There is no real need to make them permanently hostile.